There's being a Beach Boys fan, and then there's being an "I MUST have Problem Child on CD" Beach Boys fan.

What is it with Brian singing the opening lines of Al Jardine songs? I count California Saga - California, Lookin' Down The Coast and arguably Take a Load Off Your Feet.

Someone or other said Brian was taking vocal lessons just prior to MIU, and it seems to have paid off. But man, what a drop after that. His lead vocal outtakes in '78 and '79 for LA and KTSA (some not yet heard) are among the worst ever.

I'm intrigued by this - what songs are we talking here? Stuff that ended up being released with others on lead?

I note that that The Beach Boys' Christmas Album has popped up at #151 on Billboard this week. Is this a regular yuletide occurrence? It's apparently notched 107 weeks on the chart over the years.

It has as of last week spent five weeks on the billboard top 200 chart. It was on the Christmas chart for years back in the ‘60’s. The number 107 is it’s peak chart position. In January 2019 it landed on the chart at 107 for one week. As of last week it spent four more weeks on the top 200 chart. The pk in the listings is for peak position. So far it has been on the top 200 chart for five weeks total.  

Thanks Steve -- I'd eventually worked most of that out. I also mentioned this on the Feel Flows thread when the nature of today's charts was being discussed, and surmised its chart appearances were down to Little Saint Nick appearing on Christmas playlists, probably more so in supermarkets and such like than on the radio.

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Look at the "standard" Top 200 album list this week.

Indeed - The Beach Boys Christmas Album has spent the last four weeks bouncing around the lower end of the chart, being at #115 this week. I guess what you're saying here is that this is mostly down to Little Saint Nick being on rotation in supermarkets and such like.

As for McCartney III -- as someone who has only ever bothered to listen to one other McCartney album since Tug of War (that being Flaming Pie, which I only ever thought had one good song), I can say I'm very impressed with it.

With due respect to Gerry, who just said the opposite: the Awake demo is the earliest Brian vocal recording I know of that would probably cause the casual listener to grimace. Granted it's a demo or guide vocal and he's not putting much effort in, but he sounds like he's struggling for breath, and it's this struggle that's the first sign of his general deterioration. The actual loss of his upper range that is so apparent on 15 Big Ones (though he recovered it for a while, somewhat, circa MIU) came later. I can hear that same struggle for breath, in greater degree, on the Passing By demo (1974?) and the 1975 version of In The Back of My Mind.

Geez, I write that I think Goin On should have done better than 80 on the charts and I'm getting attacked. This board is a cancer. Bye.

What a child.

I note that that The Beach Boys' Christmas Album has popped up at #151 on Billboard this week. Is this a regular yuletide occurrence? It's apparently notched 107 weeks on the chart over the years.

I see it's already got two five-star ratings at Allmusic, so obviously Howie is right and this sh*t is the bomb.

Thanks and congratulations, Howie.

The response(s) were basically of the message that they are not the one with the answers, and that there are "more important" things going on, encouraging me to "put this in perspective" with the global pandemic and all.

I presume then that the latest issue of ESQ is wall-to-wall COVID-19 coverage? Because the cover suggests otherwise.

[Capitol's treatment of the Beach Boys' catalog on CD has been fabulous. What was your impression of the slew of two-fer Beach Boys CDs?]

Further to Junkstar's comment, I reiterate the following from an interview in Goldmine in 1992 which I referred to way up thread (like, back in March):

Capitol's treatment of the Beach Boys' catalog on CD has been fabulous. What was your impression of the slew of two-fer Beach Boys CDs?

I don't even know. I don't know.

Have you seen them?

No. I don't know. You find that amusing?

Yeah, it's hard to believe that being a Beach Boy you haven't seen something like that.

It is hard to believe. I find it hard to believe too.

Why is that?

Why is that? Because I'm a Pisces, is that a good answer [uproarious laughter]? That's as good as I can come up with. There is nothing that we can do to stop them from merchandising our records the way they want to merchandise them so we're at their mercy. So if they've done something that in the opinion of the caring public is well done, then I'm glad to hear it.

http://troun.tripod.com/mikelove.html

I gather that's not quite the case in relation to Feel Flows, but it's equally clear that the fate of archival releases is not what keeps Mike awake at night. So if it's indeed Mike who's the sticking point, it was probably some decision he made in a high-handed moment of pique and promptly forgot about. Certainly he doesn't feel any affection for the "core of people absorbed in knowing everything about everything", because he thinks of us as Brian Wilson cultists who don't give him his due.

Red Letter Media are an ensemble of online movie critics who gained YouTube fame with their "Mr Plinkett" deconstructions of the Star Wars prequels. Here they review the new Bill and Ted movie, which I haven't seen, but which relates the now middle-aged characters in their still unrealised quest to create the perfect piece of music that will align the planets and bring peace to the world, as foretold for them in the earlier movies from the 1990s. It appears the film's representation of this draws upon the mythology of Brian Wilson and Smile (a bit like Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story), at least to the extent that Keanu Reeves is shown playing a theremin. Certainly the implication is noted by one of the two reviewers, who conveys his understanding of Brian's career in 1966-67 to his sidekick, who is not familiar with the subject. Sadly the review does not feature the most talented of the RLM-ers, Mike Stoklasa.

https://youtu.be/3tx33tgXT3M?t=912

I'd never actually listened to The Hondells' version of Little Honda until just now. It -- how shall I put this? -- sucks.

I would hope that the fact that this box that will bring so much joy to people during an utterly dreadful and largely joyless time in human history would be enough to tip the scales in our favor.

I suspect the man who, let's face it, is almost certainly to blame for this believes he's already done his bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8OVy33V_OI

I was really excited by Howie's comment when he posted it. It took Stebbins' comment to alert me to the subtext of it, which I can now see very clearly.

This is the first I've heard of this, but is there any suggestion this might be a hoax? How likely is it that an audition tape in 1962 would have survived to the next day, never mind long enough for it to become apparent that it might be worth something one day? And why, after all that, would Geoff Emerick lock it away and never mention it?

What they really needed at this point was an outside producer, or at least co-producer. Richard Perry strikes me as a good example of someone from the era who might have whipped the band and their material into shape. I guess that didn't become the MO of record companies until the 1980s (see BB '85), but it surprises me in hindsight that Warners thought anything good would come of having Brian thrown straight in at the deep end.

So why post it on YouTube at this particular time?

This video just posted on Brian's YouTube account in which he talks (none too interestingly, it must be said) about Feel Flows (the song) seems like a good sign, no?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8v3VVgqtOA&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2dXhuByqALAg7dIiVGwc7sZOjV0mJP_jHhyolqPSH874y4P4gwzpob3tA

I recall an interview in the early 1990s when Mike was asked about the Capitol two-fer CDs, and he said he barely even knew about them.

ETA: That turns out to have been an understatement. The interview is here: http://troun.tripod.com/mikelove.html.

My feeling is that the surviving BBs are a lot less interested in what goes on these releases than we are.

I'll only say that I think Full Sail is a much better song than it's generally given credit for -- a lovely, melancholic tune with Carl's best lead in years, well suited to the adult contemporary production style that is otherwise not to my tastes. The only other songs I enjoy without reservation are Good Timin' and Baby Blue. However, I don't think it's a bad album, which I wouldn't say for anything later under the BBs' name until TWGMTR.

If I was truer to the "goofy side" concept, I'd have subbed SC for Games Two Can Play. But SC is a better song.